I have a problem with methods of learning the language by immersion only, without supporting it with a good dose of well structured grammar lessons. I don't think this method is appropriate for many, many grown ups - at least, it wouldn't work for technically/mathematically-minded people like me and my husband. I also have visual memory better that hearing memory, and really need some visual aids for better learning and understanding. Speaking and listening just not enough.
When I hear claims that 'immersion works' and 'approach ... with a focus on grammar and construction is at best terribly inefficient and at worst, doesn't work', I say, it depends on what results you planned to achieve from the start. If only spoken language is the goal, then it works, all right – and even then not for every mind type.
Yes, children learn languages by year for the first few years of their lives - but they only learn how to speak without an accent and how to express their thoughts. That's true, they don't parse sentences when they speak - but that's how those adorable mishearings and misconceptions happen. Then they spend a dozen years in school learning how to parse and construct sentences correctly, which (hopefully) clears the misconceptions and explains mishearings.
I've seen adult people that learned a language by ear. If they started young enough and have good hearing (possibly, a musical ear), they sometimes can speak fairly well – but they have no idea how to put it all in writing. They are the people who write “could of” and “should of”, have no idea what is the difference between “there”, “their”, and “they’re”, or that “no” and “know” are two different words (or “here” and “hear”, “bare” and “bear”, “kept” and “capped” for that matter). I’ve even seen people who can speak reasonably well, but cannot recognize many familiar words in writing.
TV helped me a great deal when I was learning English – but for the first few years in USA, I kept the captions on. I felt I could turn them off when I started to spot errors, misspellings, and misused words in the captions, and when I started to understand humor. But a lot of credit for my English goes to my several months of classes – especially a six-month class concentrating mostly on grammar, and a comprehensive and concise at the same time text book. As for the accent, I will always have it, no matter how much I would listen to people speaking correctly.
BadBigBen, don’t tell me you learned English only from TV. Being 12 years old, you definitely went to school, where you had to read, write, and study at least some grammar. I should know, my daughter came to USA being younger than you when you did.
